Modelling for designing, managing and improving virtual enterprises in one-of-a-kind business

Abstract

The paper starts with an exploration of the current conceptual underpinnings, paradigms and theories of production from the point of view of modelling. It is argued that modelling should bear on designing, controlling and improving production systems. Modelling should orient towards the existing three conceptual views on production: transformation, flow and value generation. Furthermore, modelling should cover both the physical process and the control information process. Finally, modelling should respond to the specific needs of virtual production in one-of-a-kind business, for example, the design of the production system accentuates. Two sets of modelling tools are analyzed against this framework: comprehensive modelling approaches and specific, more partial tools for virtual production. These results suggest that, at the level of research, the search for a unified conceptualization of production should be emphasized; only based on such a foundation can truly comprehensive and integrated modelling tools be constructed. At the more practical level, modelling efforts - in lack of tools based on a unified conceptualization - have to be partial; however, these efforts should be structured so that various modelling approaches could more easily be interfaced with each other, and the limitations of the particular tools in use should be clearly recognized. © 2001 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.